Title: No Reverse
Age Group and Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Expected release date: August 12, 2013
A girl who needs to undo the past.
A boy who wants to forget it.
In love, there’s no way back.
Five years later, Josh has breezed through Georgetown and is about to finish his post-grad degree at Oxford University. He is set to join a lobbying group on Capitol Hill, owned by his new fiancée’s father. For Josh, the sky is now the limit… only he must first take care of a tiny legal matter: technically, he’s still married to the girl who broke his heart.
Meanwhile, Cassie has been waiting tables in Steep Hill to pay for her sick grandmother’s care. On the day of the old lady’s funeral, Cassie is served with two sets of papers. Josh is asking for a divorce. Her heart squeezes, but, well, he moved on a long time ago. But the second envelope shakes Cassie to the core. So, for the first time, she leaves Kansas and heads to good ol’ England.
There, Cassie finds that Josh has not just “moved on,” he’s freakin’ engaged to some blue-blooded heiress. The feelings Cassie had buried deep rush back to her. But no matter if he keeps thrusting the divorce papers under her nose, she needs him to save the only person she loves more than Josh, more than life itself…
Cassie and Josh were high school sweethearts. He was the rich kid/quarterback/bright future ahead. She was... the opposite. And, still they were so in love it seemed like nothing can shake them. Not even pregnancy at seventeen. Josh proposed, they got married, and he was ready to change all the plans, and stick with his new family. Until there was no baby, and no reason for him to stay.
Five years later, Josh is in England. Bright future is just a step away. He is engaged, and all he needs in order to finally leave his old life behind, and turn to the future, is divorce. But, that's one thing Cassie can't give. Not yet. Because things are not always so simple. Life tends to throw surprises along the way. Josh is about to face the past in a way that he never dreamed he would. And he's about to find out just how complicated it actually was.
I have to admit, No Reverse is not what I thought it would be. Although I expected angst, and a whole lot of issues judging by the blurb, it turned out to be more. It is told in dual first person POV, so we get to see both perspectives. The story jumps back and forth between present, following Cassie on her way to England and going from there, and past - that shows us the last year of their relationship, until the bitter end. The pace is slow and steady, so there is no rushing, despite this being a rather short read.
The best part of the story, hands down, was the past. Josh's voice was so sweet. Seeing two teenagers, best friends, so in love, so hopeful, grabbed me right away. Even when things turned bad, emotions were still there, the connection was still there, though it seemed like hope was long gone...
The present part is actually what I had issues with. I understand the doubts, confusion, anger, betrayal, lies... The motivation is clear but, at some point, it all became a bit too much. Actually, the characters began to waver a bit too much at times. It was hard for me to see the old Josh in the new and (not so) improved version, as much as it was hard to go through all the sharp turns that happened along the way. I had absolutely no idea where the story is going at some points. And, though the ending turned out to be as expected, somehow it was still not what I thought it would be.
Overall, No Reverse is a nice, emotional read. If NA is your cup of tea, and you enjoy angst, be sure to give it a chance.
For those of you who are avoiding cliffhangers (like me), you won't find it here... as such. The story does have an open ending though, and a sequel will be out in the Winter 2014.
*** ARC kindly provided by the Author in exchange for an honest review ***
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Marion’s parents are terribly disappointed with her…
They wanted her to have a serious job, providing financial stability and social standing. For years, she really tried to make them happy; she studied hard, got into top schools, graduated with honors and found a high-achieving job.
But deep down, Marion was miserable. She never wanted to be a top executive, brokering deals in New York, London or Tokyo. Marion wanted to be… a ROMANCE WRITER. She wanted to spend her days in that good ol’ tracksuit of hers, in front of her laptop, popping down Oreos like there was no tomorrow. She wanted to fall in love with a different man each time she wrote the first line of a new book (while being happily married to the most handsome man in Great Britain).
That’s exactly what Marion does these days, and it makes her incredibly happy. She loves to share these happy vibes, talk book crush, fictional boyfriends and sexual chemistry with like-minded people. And because she spends most of her days on her own deep inside her writing cave, you are welcome to come and say “hello” from time to time. Just to make sure she doesn’t sink into insanity.
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